Population Consequences of Male Selection at Birth When The Sex Probabilities Can Be Altered
by Frank T. Denton and Byron G. Spencer
We explore the implications of male preference stopping rules for a stable population, and more generally the aggregate implications of higher male/female birth ratios. We begin by specifying nine alternative family stopping rules, derive their probability functions, and simulate the long-run effects on population growth rates and age and sex ratios. We then move away from the idea of explicit stopping rules and simulate the population effects of 81 alternative combinations of birth sex ratios and fertility rates under (implicit) preference for male children. The results show how male preference and fertility choices at the individual family level can affect the overall characteristics of a population.Download PDF

Changes in Wage Distributions of Wage Earners in Canada: 2000-2005
by Kao-Lee Liaw and Lei Xu
This research attempts to figure out whether the wage distributions of Canadian wage earners have been moving towards or away from the flowing three ideals in the early part of the 21th century. First, there be a pattern of wage increase that is shared by a large majority of wage earners. Second, the historical gender inequality in wage be reduced. Third, there be a decrease in wage inequality for both males and females. We use the long-form records of the 2001 and 2006 population censuses to carry out our investigation. A nice feature of these records is that the values of income variables are not top-coded so that the true averages will not be understated and good insights into the situations of those with extremely high incomes can be obtained. We are disappointed by finding that the Canadian economy mostly drifted away from our three ideals, with the main exception being that for female wage earners the improvement in wage was fortunately shared by a large majority. We believe that an important reason for our disappointing finding is the progressive entrenchment of market fundamentalism in Canada. Incidentally, we have discovered that Statistics Canada did a good job in designing the 2006 census questionnaire so that the annoying choppiness that occurred to the 2000 wage distributions vanished in the 2005 wage distributions.Download PDF